


The Huntress in the Woods

by AnonymousXXIII



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Lots of people got hurt, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Relationship(s), Post-Volume 3 (RWBY), Slice of Life, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7238926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousXXIII/pseuds/AnonymousXXIII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They knew the road to travel to Mistral would be difficult, but they didn’t expected to struggle so much to make it.<br/>One day the weather got worse, they lost the road and couldn’t find their way to a nearby village. On that day, Ruby, Ren, Nora and Jaune were attacked by a pack of Grimm and were unable to defeat them.<br/>Luckily, they were saved by a mysterious Huntress who is not convinced that they are able to make the trip on their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waking up

**Author's Note:**

> I have been a long time since I wrote something and it's the first time I'm writing a RWBY fanfic...
> 
> Also, english isn't my first language, so be tolerant if you find any mistakes and let me know of them

Everything is blurry when Jaune wakes up. His body ached and his head hurt a lot. The place he was laying on is soft and warm, someone had made an effort to make sure he was comfortable..

The only light of the room came from the fire of the firewood heater that was on a far corner. Looking around, he spotted Ren, Nora and Ruby sleeping on mattresses, their heavy clothing and weapons were carefully set next to them. But how did they get there? Jaune had no memory of them finding shelter or arriving at a village.

In an attempt to make his head hurt less, Jaune raised his hand to rub his forehead, but his finges touched fabric instead of skin. A fumbling around his head makes him find out someone bandaged it. He got hurt? How? When it happened? Who took care of him?

It took a few minutes for him to realize that maybe he wasn’t the only one injured. Jaune got up, making a wave of dizziness hit him and make him fell against the wood floor. Concluding that he wouldn’t be able to get up, Jaune crawled to Ruby, who was the one closest to him, and inspected her. She was sleeping peacefully despite the bad-looking bruise on her right eye and the patch on her cheek. Since she looked fine, he went to check on Ren and Nora.

Ren seemed okay, but Nora had terrible bruising on her collarbone, neck and cheek. Jaune pulled the covers a bit until he could see Nora’s shoulders, he stopped when he saw more bruising sprouting from blood-stained bandages on her collarbone and chest.

“Nora…” Jaune whispered. Somehow, he felt it was his fault. Was it his fault?  
Jaune closed his eyes and made a big effort to remember what happened before he lost consciousness.

They were traveling to Mistral. The map showed they were near a village, but they lost their way when the weather started to get bad. Ren suggested that they looked for a shelter before the snowstorm started. Everything else was blurred.

A sound coming from the other side of the door made Jaune snap out from that state and realize that he was inside a house. Someone had to have brought him and his friends inside it.

Not knowing what kind of person had sheltered them, Jaune forced himself to get up, grabbed his sword and left the room. He didn’t really knew what he would do when he met the owner of the house. Besides that, the nausea and dizziness were hitting him with steady waves that were getting bigger and bigger each step he took.

The corridor outside the room was small. There was a door in front of him and another at his left, at the end of the hall. Jaune turned to the other side, following the sounds of tinkling dishes. He slumped a bit and had to use his shield arm for support against the wall. The wise thing to do was stop and rest a bit, maybe even going back to bed, but Jaune was too stubborn to do that.

A few more steps and Jaune found himself in front of a kitchen area. The room was a kitchen equipped with a stove made of clay and stone, a sink and a big cabinet. It also had a dinner table with a few chairs and an opening to what looked like a living room with a fireplace. Standing before the stove was a young woman with long light-brown hair. That was the only thing he could tell about her before his vision blacked for a moment and his nausea turned into a huge need to vomit.

Jaune dropped his sword to cover his mouth in reflex. The weapon hit the floor with a loud clunk. Jaune didn’t really noticed the sound or the hurried footsteps going on his direction as he fought to keep his balance and swallow the nasty thing he was about to spit out.

He looked up when he felt two hands hold his upper arms and balance him. It took a moment for him to register that the woman whom he just saw was before him.

The woman let his weight guide them until them both were kneeling. Jaune felt her slip off the shield from his arm, he made a movement to grab it back but she made sure it was out of his reach and threw it away from them.

“A bit too soon for you to be up, kid”

“Who-?” Jaune started, being interrupted when he felt another wave of vomit almost leave his throat.

“Damn” She muttered as she reached for something away from his line of sight. 

Jaune felt her arm go under his and hold onto his chest just as he saw her put a trash can in front of him. He choked two more times before finally giving up and vomiting inside it. He vomited two more times, convulsing and losing the strength on his arms at each time, but the woman held him and rubbed his back in comfort.

After he was finished, she put him in a sitting position with his back against the wall and walked to the sink. Jaune just sat there with his head low as tears of pain and shame ran from his eyes. He opened his eyes a few moments later when he felt a warm hand touch his cheek.

This time he took a good look at the woman. Her eyes were an olive green shade and her skin had a light tanned tone. She was older than him, not enough to be his mom, but maybe enough to be his teacher or one of his older sisters. 

“Drink this. Its tea.” She ordered as she brought a mug to his lips. Jaune stubbornly turned his head away from it. “Please… It is safe. I promise”

The woman drank some of the mug contents before offering it back to Jaune. Convinced it was indeed safe, Jaune accepted and drank all of it. It was pleasant, made his throat stop hurting and washed away the sour taste from his mouth.

“Now come on” She slipped her arm around his back, grabbing at his side, and put his arm over her shoulder “Time for you to go back to bed”.

Jaune was too tired and sick to fight her or ask questions, so he let her lift and guide him. He kept blinking in and out of conscience as they moved. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep was a soft hand caress his hair.

Somehow, he felt safe.


	2. The Huntress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally a new chapter!
> 
> This time the beta reader was a lovely british friend of mine. Go check his videos, he is awesome! 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/user/Stanty16/videos

Jaune’s world was a bit less blurry and confusing when he woke up the second time. His head still hurt and more or less knew where he was, but the strange heaviness on his chest was new to him.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Ruby sleeping on him. Ruby wasn’t wearing her usual attire, but instead had an oversized grey shirt and a long brown skirt. The way she was laying was awkward; she had her right side on Jaune and her left leg was completely stretched. It looked uncomfortable.

Ruby must have sensed Jaune move, she stirred and slowly raised her head. All her sleepiness went away when she saw Jaune staring at her.

“Jaune, you’re awake!” She exclaimed in awe.

“Hey Ruby…” All the sudden, Ruby hugged him and started muttering something about him being okay. “Ruby, is something wrong?”

Ruby backed up a bit, she looked like she was about to start crying.

“You just wouldn’t wake up! You-you got struck after defending Nora and hit your head on a rock. You were bleeding a lot. And when we woke up, you didn’t!” She said at a frantic pace, it seemed she wasn’t breathing. “We thought that there was something wrong, even when she said it was normal-“

“What? Ruby wait. Wait!” Ruby stopped talking and looked at him “Who is ‘she’?”

Ruby breathed and pointed idly to the door. “The-the Huntress who saved us. She jumped in and killed the Grimm before it finished us, then her and a guy brought us here on a wagon.”

“She is a Huntress?” Jaune asked as he rose to sit “What’s her name?”

“She hasn’t told us. She just tends to our wounds and bosses us around, never answering our questions. You remember seeing her?”

Jaune put a hand on his forehead and tried to summon memories from when he was in the forest with his friends, but he could only remember the Huntress when he saw her after they were already inside the house.

“No, I don’t think so…” 

He looked up to meet Ruby’s eyes. The white of her right eye was filled with blood, and her skin had lost some of the swelling but the purple-red bruises were there like a macabre stain on her face. The patch was gone, reveling a big stitched cut with small cuts sprouting from it. Her eyes showed tiredness and worry, so Jaune decided not telling her about him waking up and meeting the Huntress hours before. 

“What happened to your face?”

“Oh!” Ruby put a hand on her face as if she was trying to conceal it “Huh… A Beowulf grabbed my leg when I tried to run and smashed me against a tree. It… It also sprained my knee pretty badly.” She raised the rim of her skirt and showed Jaune her left leg. Her knee was bandaged and had a splint tied against it.

“Ren and Nora?”

“Ren is okay, he only had bruised ribs and some cuts. But Nora…” Ruby hesitated. For a moment she considered the idea of not telling Jaune and make him sleep again, but he deserved to know. “Nora had it pretty bad. The Grimm slashed her stomach and chest kinda deep.”

Jaune lowered his head and held it with both of his hands. That information made his stomach twist. He felt guilty, scared, glad and hurt all the same time. 

Shortly after they left Vale, when they defeated the first Grimm they encountered on the way, the need of nominating a leader for their newly formed team was brought up. The discussion quickly developed to decide if the leader would be either Jaune or Ruby, which was only natural, since they both had played the role for a year and Ren and Nora didn’t see themselves fit for the task. Jaune ended up being chosen. Well, it was more of a ‘volunteering’. Ruby was a great leader, but he noticed that she was hesitant on assuming the role. 

He didn’t really want to be a leader again, not having Pyrrha’s support and kind words made everything difficult. Not having Pyrrha there was difficult. But Ren and Nora still relied on him, they were still a team; and Ruby didn’t have that anymore, she didn’t feel like a leader anymore since her team, her friends, weren’t there. Therefore, Jaune did what Pyrrha would have done: He took the burden from his friend.

The funny thing is that he actually believed he was doing a good job until a few days ago. To think that he allowed them to stray from their path, to start running out of food and be hurt like that made him feel sick. His friends trusted him, and he failed them, just like he had failed Pyrrha

Jaune raised his head and came back to reality when he felt Ruby rub his back. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” That was a lie. Besides his emotional state, his head still hurt a lot. Jaune looked around, finally recognizing that only himself and Ruby were in the room. “Where are Ren and Nora?”

“They are in another room. I stayed here to watch over you”

“Thanks” Jaune really wanted to see them. He needed to see that they were okay. He got up and offered Ruby a hand. “Let’s join them”.

Jaune helped Ruby to stand up and handed her a pair of wooden crutches she had next to her on the floor. They walked to the big room Jaune remembered walking there the night before. There was no sign of the Huntress in the kitchen area, but he saw Ren and Nora sitting on cushions in front of the fireplace. Ren sat with his legs crossed while Nora was leaning on him. They were both watching the fire.

“Hey guys! Look who’s awake!” Ruby announced before Jaune could say anything.

Ren and Nora looked behind their shoulders; their eyes sparkled when they spotted Jaune.

“Jaune!” Nora screamed with joy and tried to get up, an action that made her whine and cringe in pain. Ren steadied her, and made her sit down.

“It is pleasant to see you up on your feet, Jaune” Ren saluted as he fought to contain Nora, who was trying to get up again.

When Jaune noticed, he was kneeling in front of his two teammates and giving them a hug. That crushing weight of guilt disappeared from his chest for a few seconds. Ren and Nora were okay, that made him feel lighter than he had in weeks. He was wondering what to say until he felt his ribs crushing. It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t his guilt striking back, instead, it was Nora giving him one of her bear hugs.

“Nora, you are going to rip your stitches again if you don’t stop” Ren insisted as he tried to make Nora let go of Jaune.

“Shut up! Let me do this one thing!”

“Is Ren giving you a hard time?” Jaune jokingly asked as he tried to breathe and laugh at the same time.

“She is just frustrated because her injuries don’t allow her to move too much”

“And the Huntress already scolded her three times for not behaving like a good patient” Ruby added.

A loud rumble made them all stop for a second. When it happened again, everyone turned to look at Jaune. After the third one, Jaune started to feel a bit dizzy and sat down on the floor.

“I’m hungry…” he complained as his stomach rumbled again.

“Don’t worry, I can get you something” Ren said. 

Ren helped Nora sit next to Jaune and pointed a finger on her, as if he was commanding her to ‘stay’. Nora showed her tongue in protest before leaning against Jaune. She immediately started blabbering something (one of the first things Jaune learned about Nora, is that she can talk faster than a chainsaw revs), but he couldn’t listen. On one side, he was glad to see she was fine even with the terrible wounds she had; on the other hand, he still could hear an annoying ringing noise that was making him insane.

“Jaune?” Jaune whipped his head up when he heard Ruby, who had taken a seat on the chair next to the table, call him “Are you sure you are okay?”

“Yeah, I guess” he responded as he rubbed his forehead a bit

“Don’t push yourself” Ren advised as he handed a bowl filled with soup “You are not 100%”

“He isn’t even 10%” Nora retorted.

Jaune smelled the soup before guiding a spoonful of it into his mouth. It could be the hunger, but he could swear it was the most delicious thing he ever tasted. The creamy broth was warming his upset stomach and the meat and vegetables filled it up without weighting it. Even with the pleasant feeling the food had given him, his stomach turned and flipped after he finished it, forcing him to cover his mouth with his hand to keep the meal from escaping.

“Don’t do a ‘me’! You can’t eat that much in one go!”

“What?” Jaune got confused with Nora’s statement.

“She is telling you not to eat so fast” Ren explained “you can’t do that after not eating well for days”

“Thanks…” Ren was talkative and Ruby was quiet. The time he was unconscious made them change or that was the way they were reacting because of their concern for him? That made him feel worse.

“Where did you got those clothes?” Jaune asked them after he finally noticed that he was the only one who was still wearing his dirty, torn, old clothes. Ren had brown pants and a white long-sleeve shirt while Nora was wearing a white buttoned dress.

“The Huntress gave them to us. She is fixing and cleaning our clothes, so she gave us some extra ones she had laying around.” Ruby answered.

“Huh… Makes sense…” Now Jaune knew three things about the Huntress: She was a skilled cook; charitable enough to tend their wounds and let them stay in her cabin; and she was bossy. Not too much, definitely not enough to interact with her properly, but maybe the others knew a bit more than they thought they did. “What is she like?”

“Well…” Ruby started.

They went silent when the door of the cabin opened. Jaune knew who it was: The Huntress, the owner of the house, the one who saved them. She was a tall woman with long light-brown hair, tied in a French braid and with a gold wheat hairpin holding the bangs a little over her ear. She wore dark-brown pants, knee-high leather boots and a dark green coat with gold buttons that was long enough to reach the middle of her tights.

Jaune found that she was much more intimidating now that he was completely lucid than when he was groggy. The fact that she had her weapons with her – a pair of Hook Swords attached to her waist belt – and was carrying two dead hares on one hand didn’t help.

The Huntress acknowledged them as she got in, opening a small smile when she saw Jaune.

“Good to see you awake, kid. I was starting to get worried.”

“Huh… what?” Jaune felt like he was missing something.

“You had a concussion, a bad one. You probably cracked your skull." She said as she walked to the counter, "There was little I could do with my resources, so I just let you rest and moved you as little as possible to let your body recover from the shock on its own and hope for the best." She turned back to them after putting the hares inside the sink. “You did scared me when you woke up the other day. I am no medic, but I could tell it was too early for you to be up.”

“What?! You woke up?!” Nora exclaimed “Why didn't you say anything?! You didn’t think to tell us?!”

“I…” Jaune really didn’t knew what to say.

“Hush now, he probably doesn’t remember. Besides, it happened two days ago.” The Huntress noticed the confusion and horror on Jaune’s face. “You four have been here for five days. You woke up on the daybreak of day three.”

The Huntress gave Jaune some time to digest the information. She got impatient after some time and turned to hang her weapons on a hook next to the door. Ren shook Jaune after a few minutes, indicating he dozed off for too long. Looking up, he saw the Huntress leaning against the table, next to Ruby, with her arms crossed and staring at him. 

He didn’t know what to do, so he figured it would be better if he introduced himself to the Huntress, maybe it would make her talk more to them.

“huh… I’m Jaune. You already met my team: Nora, Ren and Ruby” he said pointing to each one of them “Thanks for taking care of us”

“I don’t think you introduced yourself” Ren pointed out.

“That’s because I didn’t” she answered immediately “I am Olivia Ceres, the huntress responsible of patrolling and keeping this side of the woods secure.”

The group knew that every village outside of the kingdoms had at least a Huntsman to keep the people safe, but having someone being pointed as a guard outside of the community was new to them. Maybe the Huntress, Olivia, self-proclaimed the title? Since there was people that didn’t fit themselves into the kingdom lifestyle, it wasn’t impossible for a Huntsman or Huntress to seek a solitary life.

“You might be awake and lucid now, but that doesn’t means you are better.” Olivia said to Jaune as she prepared to leave the room “Rest, catch up with your friends. I’m going to prepare a bath and find clothes for you.”

Jaune looked at his friends dumbfounded. They were right when they said that the Huntress didn’t talk much, but starting a conversation just to leave a few seconds later was just rude. Ruby clearly had enough of Olivia’s attitude, but she didn’t confront that straightforward, she did what she does best: awkwardly tried to start a conversation with a stranger.

“It was awesome what you did in the woods the other day!” Ruby’s exclamation made Olivia stop from leaving the room and turn her head to them. “I mean… How did you hit the Grimm from distance with your swords? It all happened very fast!” The young Huntress clearly succeeded on claiming the attention from the older woman, since she turned to look at her. The success made Ruby get nervous, something about Olivia’s eyes looking at her with interest was intimidating. “Huh… And you have good timing too! We’d be dead if you hadn’t shown up!”

“Yes. Yes, you would.” Olivia answered. The cold and annoyed tone on her voice sent chills down their spine. She came back into the room and turned her attention on them. “I was planning to have this conversation in a day or two, after you got at least your heads straight. But since you are all feeling chatty today, let’s talk.”

The four of them looked at each other. No one expected that Ruby’s attempt to make Olivia talk to them would turn out like that.

“Where is your instructor?” Olivia inquired.

There was a brief pause.

“Our what?” Nora asked.

“Your instructor. The Huntsman or Huntress that was supposed to be accompanying you.” Olivia let a irritated breath out after they remained silent “Please, you really want me to believe that a Huntsmen Academy allowed a team of students to venture this far outside of the Kingdoms without at least one professional Huntsman to keep an eye on them?”

“We don’t have one.” Jaune was quick to answer, making Olivia turn to look at him. “We don’t need one. We are Huntsmen.”

“Really?” Olivia raised an eyebrow “So, you four are a team of Huntsmen.” Jaune nodded “I’m sorry but I believe that you just told me bullshit. I mean, you all are kids.”

“We are not-“

“Quiet!” Olivia ordered, silencing Nora’s protest “I am the one talking, and you kids are going to be silent until I finish.” She took a deep breath. “I am not going to believe that you are all Huntsmen and Huntresses. As far as I can see, you are just children playing the role. Do you have any idea how lucky you all got? That if I hadn’t decided to accompany Cobalt, and if I hadn’t noticed the skirmish, you would be all dead.”

There was a minute of silence. That last sentence made Ruby, Nora, Jaune and Ren realize how close they really had gotten to death. They had barely digested the information when Olivia decided to keep talking.

“It’s clear you all have abilities, but I’m not taking any risks, so here what is going to happen: I am going to ask the Sheriff to send a notice to the nearest Kingdom to send a Huntsman to take you home. Until that happens, you are going to stay here, where you can heal and I can keep an eye on you.” 

“What!?” They all exclaimed in unison.

“You can’t do that!” Jaune protested.

“But we have a mission!” Ruby tried to argue.

“ENOUGH!” The house shook with Olivia’s exclamation for silence, which made the group stay quiet again. “I don’t care what you kids think you have to do or that you have a mission to fulfill. I am not letting a group of unsupervised, undertrained and unprepared kids go out to get themselves killed on the Remnant’s wilds. So yes: I can, and I will, keep you here. Using force if it proves necessary.”

Olivia took a deep breath and turned to leave, but stopped just before she got out of the group’s line of vision. “Enjoy your stay”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presenting my RWBY OC: Olivia Ceres.
> 
> Any first impressions of her?
> 
> Please, leave a comment or a kudo if you liked it. Kudos make my heart warm...

**Author's Note:**

> Here goes the first chapter. 
> 
> I want to thank the lovely angel who beta-read this for me (I don't know if you wishes to stay anon, but you know who you are, so thank you)
> 
> Let me know what you think ;)


End file.
